Tuesday, December 31, 2013

On
December 28th, the Democratic National Committee sent an email to “Obama for
America” supporters. The subject line was “Impeachment.”

“What do
these people have in common?” asked the text as it quoted Republican James
Inhofe of Oklahoma, Rep. Michele Bachman of Minnesota, Rep. Kerry Bentivivolio
of Michigan, and Rep. Blake Farenhold of Texas, all of whom discussed the
possibility of impeaching Obama, citing instances of official misconduct. The
DNC said, “Republicans are actually excited about the idea.”

Ten days
earlier, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the chair of the DNC, had sent an email
to supporters updating them on the party’s strategy to win elections in 2014.
“What you need is good strategy, smart people, and ideas you’re proud to stand
behind…” The one thing missing from the email was the mention of a single idea.
No mention of Obamacare, amnesty, or any other Democratic policies.

When I
visited Democrats.org on December 29, the website was telling members that
“The economy could face a credit downgrade if Republicans continue to threaten
to default on our loans.”No mention of
the first such downgrade in the history of the nation which occurred during
Obama’s first term and was a response to the nearly six trillion dollars he had
added to the nation’s debt.

Under the
headline “Dirtier”, the DNC claimed that “All the gains we’ve made for our
environment, like two million acres of preserved land and rivers will be on the
line.”That’s right, Republicans want
dirtier air and water, and the way to protect the nation is to ensure that
millions of acres cannot be used by Americans, especially if there is lots of
coal or oil is under those acres. According to Wikipedia, “As of
March 2012, out of the 2.27 billion acres in the country, about 28% of the
total was owned by American citizens represented by the National Federal
government according to the Interior Department.” That’s
right, more than a quarter of all the landmass of the nation is owned by the
federal government.

The
headline “Less Fair” was followed by “Our voter protection efforts and
workplace equality work will be undone” but it is Democrats who oppose any
state effort to pass laws that require proof of citizenship or even residency.
And, under “Less Healthy” it accused all who want to “’Repeal Obamacare’. Need
we say more?” Apparently a law that deprives you of your personal physician and
imposes higher costs on government-approved healthcare insurance plans is a
good thing.

Not only
are we witnessing a full scale panic in the Democratic National Committee, we
can read just how devoid of any truth and any sense any of their policies are.
If a few Republicans in Congress had a passing comment on impeaching President
Obama, it comes as no surprise whatever.

In late
December, Forbes magazine published an article by Ira Shapiro, a senior fellow
in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute and editor-in-chief of the Cato
Supreme Court Review. The title was “President Obama’s Top 10 Constitutional
Violations of 2013.” Shapiro didn’t even have to go back any further to include
others during his first term.

Among
those cited was Obama’s delay of out-of-pocket caps, a change that requires
actual legislation. Similarly, the delay of Obamacare’s employer mandate was
cited because, if Obamacare is the “law of the land”, such changes require
action by Congress. Several other
changes to Obamacare by the President were cited for the same reason.

Political
profiling by the IRS was cited such as an internal BOLO, “Be on the lookout”.
for organizations engaged in political activities, citing “Tea Party”,
“Patriots” and “Israel” as words to identify them. The targeting continued
through May 2013 until it was exposed.

What
Republicans and independents know and Democrats do not want to acknowledge is
that Obamacare is, to use its most frequent description, “a disaster.” Many
suspect that Obama was and is ineligible to be President. The birth certificate
put forward by the White House has been declared a forgery. His Social Security
number is suspect. It is common knowledge that his college records are all
sealed even though he may have applied for admission as a “foreign student.”

So, yes,
the Democratic National Committee has a lot to hide about the President and its
support for legislation and regulations based on “climate change” and other
liberal notions that lack the knowledge of science and warp its practice. It
continues to advocate spending billions, if not trillions, the U.S. does not
have. And, finally, the President’s foreign policies—not mentioned in its
emails or on its website—have been a dismal failure, making the world more
dangerous.

The
Democratic Party has one thing going for it---the mainstream media. In the
Sunday before the New Year, the New York Times published a 7,000-word article
claiming that the attack on the Benghazi consulate where our ambassador and
three others were killed was not related to al Qaeda. In the words of former
Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, “What difference does it make?” Answer: A
lot. This “newspaper” is the U.S. equivalent of Pravda during the days of
Stalin.

In
November, Americans have the opportunity to remove Democratic Senators and
Representatives who voted for Obamacare and replace them with candidates who
believe the Constitution means what it says.

Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" and shared on dozens
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Pundits, so I am told, on or about, December 31st, are expected to make predictions for the coming year.
Normally, I don't do this, preferring to make all sort of wild predictions throughout the year, most of which turn out to totally wrong. The good thing about being a pundit is the reader's very bad and extremely short memory! It has saved my derriere any number of times.

Howsoever, never let it be said I did not do my part to muddy the future waters of the new year 2014.

So -- here goes:

If you liked 2013 you're gonna LOVE 2014!

This IS an election year. (I'm so old I can remember when we actually had some space between elections! These days the pols just campaign non-stop!) We have the Democrats, the Republicans, and the Conservatives (Yeah, I deliberately carved conservatives out of the GOP. Wishful thinking on my part. See, I'd like to see conservatives with their own political party. As I said -- wishful thinking.) all vying for leadership positions that, for the most part, NONE of them is equipped to handle.

In 2014, I see the Obama Administration doing a pretty good imitation of the Hindenburg, (Oh! The humanity ... ! Remember? OK, so Google it!) as it continues to crash and burn. Ratlines are already being established for "antsy" members of the administration ready to beat a hasty retreat out of Foggy Bottom and lose themselves amongst the proletariat, at least for a few years -- til the furor blows over.

Obamacare has turned out to be the suicide pact for the democrats we warned it would be. The pay-off for those of us who fought Obamacare tooth and nail will come in November with the pending purge of the Congress of the current brood of vipers now in residence, hopefully ending the polymorphous perversity of that particular band of brigands. I hope!

Obama will tell more lies. (I don't think that needs any elucidation... do you?)

US troops will continue to leave Afghanistan leaving only a token force to secure Mr. Karzai's head in it's current position atop his shoulders. However, the Taliban has laid claim to the other end of his anatomy and may yet collect their prize!

There will be no peace between the Israeli's and the so-called Palestinians. (Actually, I cheated on this one. I read the Bible.)

Iran will continue to manufacture the ingredients for a nuclear bomb, some call the Islam Bomb. They will continue to smile -- and lie through their teeth -- and string Obama along like the simpleton they believe him to-be.

Resistance to Syria's Assad will slowly diminish as Assad runs out of fellow Syrians to kill.

The US will become entangled in a militaristic adventure in Africa, which we will not win. It would be politically incorrect for America to win a war with a black opponent.
Back here at the asylum, er, at home, Obama will pull out all the stops to get amnesty through Congress and into law to grab as many Latino voters as possible in an effort to save the collective rear ends of his Democratic Party cohorts and set the stage for Hillary's run for the Presidency in 2016.

Hillary will deny she's running, of course. But then: "What difference does it make now"(Sorry 'bout that ... couldn't resist.)

America's paternalistic elite ruling class will continue to lead the nation into a virtual police state form of society and government. The constitution will be proclaimed null and void.
The Marxocrats in the West Wing will continue their endeavor to fundamentally transform America into that socialist/communist dung heap we have warned of for so long, while those of us in the conservative commentariat continue to call them on it at every opportunity.

Congress will vote to give California to China as partial payment of all the loans we owe them. Expect China to refuse -- unless we agree to keep Governor "Moonbeam."

I could go one, but, frankly, it's too depressing.

It is already shaping up to be another lousy year in the land of the formerly free.

Monday, December 30, 2013

All this time I have been laboring under the false impression that the Congress was constitutionally assigned the duty of making and changing (amending) law(s) for the country. Silly me! I am SO embarrassed! Just shows how dumb a poor ole swamp rat like yours truly can actually be, I suppose.

Anyway, Mr. Obama has set me straight on that. He has shown me that HE has the power to make law, and change law, and enforce law or -- choose NOT to enforce law -- as HE chooses.

All things considered, one must ask WHY we even have a Congress? Couldn't we save major bucks by just dissolving the Congress and have done with it? I mean, heck, we've got Obama -- The Law Giver as our President! What need have we of a Congress?

With Obama it is all give and take. He gives -- AND -- he takes. The man refuses to acknowledge his limitations under the constitution. He just ignores it in part or in whole -- as the notion strikes him.

This is not just wrong, gentle reader, this is ILLEGAL.

Playing fast and loose with the US Constitution, under normal circumstances, would get one placed UNDER the jailhouse! No longer.

But these are not normal times. We live now in a "post constitution era" in America. We find ourselves in the short-lived period between freedom and slavery. Once a nation begins a slide into slavery the pace quickens and doesn't take very long to find an entire people clasped in the bonds of involuntary servitude.

I find it ironic that Obama, a black man, is so intent on leading his people, white and black, into tyranny induced slavery in America. There's something just plain vulgar about that.

The Obama administration is proving to be more corrupt that the Grant, the Harding, or the Nixon administrations. I was not around for the first two, but I lived every minute of the Nixon administration and I can tell you the American people never sensed a threat to their freedom from Nixon as they do from Obama.

When Nixon's party, the Republican Party, realized the enormity of his misdeeds, they quickly formed a committee and paid Nixon a visit and read him the riot act. They told him, flat out, that he was going to be impeached and the Congress WOULD find him guilty and he WOULD be removed from office in disgrace, unless, he resigned -- and resigned immediately. Nixon resigned and managed by doing so to save SOME face and enough dignity to gracefully exit the White House while staff and a few members of his administration stood clustered near the helicopter LZ looking on in tears.

It was a trying time for the republic, but we survived and the constitution proved, once again, its value and worth as a foundation document and the protector of freedom.
On December 31st, 2012, the non-partisan Judicial Watch released its annual "Most Corrupt Politicians in Washington List."On that list were: President Obama and key members of his Democrat cabinet like Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, disgraced Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, and UN Ambassador Susan Rice. They were among the top ten names on the list. That was last year. We can hardly wait for this years list to be released. Judicial Watch is a public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption. You may see the entire list at: http://www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-announces-list-of-washingtons-ten-most-wanted-corrupt-politicians-for-2012/

Let's see. Right now, Americans are attempting to deal with a host of Obama administration scandals: The NSA scandal, the IRS Scandal, the Navy Seal scandal, the Benghazi scandal, and the Fast and Furious Scandal.

Then there is Obamacare.

Obama and his minions have trashed the constitution. Mr. Obama claims to be a constitutional scholar, indeed, taught constitutional law in college. Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School for twelve years! Seems to me that with that sort of background he should know better!

In an article at Front Page Magazine, Arnold Ahlert says the following: "Perhaps the most contemptible effort in that regard is President Obama’s transparently unconstitutional effort to suspend various parts of the Affordable Healthcare Act. How Americans feel about that piece of legislation is irrelevant. What’s relevant is that Congress passed the law, including the part that calls for its implementation beginning on Jan. 1, 2014, and the president signed it. There is no Constitutional way the president can simply choose to ignore sections of a law he doesn’t like, or go around Congress completely when they won’t kowtow to his agenda.

Let's cut to the chase. There is a serious shortage of intestinal fortitude in Congress today. There is a palpable lack of guts within the ranks of the GOP in the House of Representatives. A Bill of Impeachment ought to be introduced, voted on, and passed in the House ASAP.

Having said that, please understand that I am not so foolish as to believe that the US Senate, controlled by the President's own party The Democratic Party) , therefore by Obama, himself, will find him guilty.But this administration's corruption needs to be documented, publicly, and made a part of the historical record of the country for future generations. With the phalanx of protection the Mainstream Media has thrown up around their president, the ONLY way that will happen is -- through impeachment.

In the meantime, things in America are only going to get worse.

Every time Obama gets away with a violation of the constitution, it emboldens him, it becomes easier for him to so it again and again. I am concerned Congress has already waited too long. I suspect many in Congress fear an uprising of civil unrest (riots) among the black population of the country should they impeach Obama. Then so be it. NOTHING should get in the way of doing the RIGHT thing.

Impeaching Obama IS the right thing to do. The rape of the constitution must be ended.

Sunday, December 29, 2013

When The Cat's Away -- The Mice Will PlayA Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
*****************

Step back. Take a look at the world today. It's an unmitigated MESS!
China and Japan, Russia and Syria, Russia and the Ukraine, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt, Israel and the so-called Palestinians, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Mali, and the Pacific Rim countries, North Korea, the Philippines, and sundry other places that escape my memory at the moment.

THIS is what"leading from behind"has wrought. THIS is Obama's foreign policy -- no foreign policy.

Oh, there's more to come. As soon as US troops leave Afghanistan, the Taliban will move right back in with great shedding of blood. Iran will soon have a nuclear bomb, (unless Israel intervenes) as will several other Middle Eastern countries.

South of us, well, South America is keeping a low profile -- and that worries me. Look for Argentina to take another shot at snatching the Falkland Islands from Great Britain -- again.

Brazil is on its best behavior these days getting all gussied-up up for the Football World Cup coming up in June. Venezuela has its own internal problems (so far) trying to imitate Cuba or the old Soviet Union and managing to provide the hemisphere with some tragic humor.

There's not much coming out of our neighbors to the south these days mainly because the Obama administration seems to have simply written them off, which means the Mainstream Media in the US has no interest in anything happening below Brownsville, Texas, or Key West, Florida.

Oh. About Obama's "pivot" to the Pacific Rim? Well, it now appears he has abandoned it. Could it be that has emboldened China to stretch out across the South China Sea and confront Japan over the Senkaku Islands? I hope SOMEONE has made our President aware that we have a binding treaty with Japan to protect them should they be attacked. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

According to the "Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security" between the United States and Japan, the US is committed to protecting Japan against an enemy's attack. Judging from the Japanese government's recent consideration toward reevaluating their "no nukes" stance, something tells me the Japanese are worried about Obama's steadfastness in so far as his standing by America's treaty obligations with them.

I've been around since the tail end of the Great Depression and, frankly, I don't remember the US being this disengaged globally, well, EVER!

One of the consequences of voluntary isolation for a country is that that country loses any influence it might have on world events.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Something will fill it. Russia and China have stepped up and are aggressively filling the void left when Obama took the US into full retreat from the world. The US has less and less influence around the globe as each day passes. We are seeing the results of that lack of influence all over the world today. It is likely to get much worse.

Our President is a joke to foreign governments. Obama is not what the remainder of the world considers "reliable." See, they're ahead of America's own citizens in arriving at that precisely correct conclusion.

Consider this from Max Boot at commentarymagazine.com: "Moreover, Americans aren’t happy with Obama’s foreign policy in general: “Forty-nine percent disapproved of Mr. Obama’s foreign policy efforts, up 10 points since early June, and 40 percent approved. The president’s negative rating on foreign policy has grown among Americans of all political stripes, with disapproval up 8 points among Democrats, 10 points among Republicans and 13 points among independents.”

Consider this from the May/June 2012 issue of Foreign Affairs. (http://www.foreignaffairs.com/): "When Obama was sworn into office in January 2009, he had already developed an activist vision of his foreign policy destiny. He would refurbish the United States' image abroad, especially in the Muslim world; end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; offer an outstretched hand to Iran; "reset" relations with Russia as a step toward ridding the world of nuclear weapons; elicit Chinese cooperation on regional and global issues; and make peace in the Middle East. By his own account, Obama sought nothing less than to bend history's arc in the direction of justice and a more peaceful, stable world." -- SOURCE:http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137516/martin-indyk-kenneth-lieberthal-and-michael-e-ohanlon/scoring-obamas-foreign-policy

Those of us who live in the real world had serious misgivings about his grasp of real world politics as soon as we learned of his pie-in-the-sky attitude toward the world situation. In fact, it frightened old hands at foreign affairs and shocked even more. It seemed his naivete knew no bounds. It has turned out that that assessment was nearer to the mark than even we knew at the time.

The recent Obama imbroglio in Syria leads many, yours truly included, into believing Obama has no definitive foreign policy.He just makes it up as he goes!

One has to wonder how our traditional allies feel about this seeming lackadaisical attitude toward American leadership in the world. One such ally, Israel, now knows, with a high degree of certainty, they cannot depend upon America as long as Obama is in the Oval Office. How must Great Britain, France, Germany, Australia, Canada, et al, feel about any dependence upon America these days?

All one is required to do to see the justification in our query is simply observe the mess the world is in today.

Those of us who have been around the block a few times understand the importance and the necessity of remaining involved, of having some skin in the game. It wasn't nice. It wasn't comfortable, and often it has cost us in blood, sweat, tears and treasure -- but it was -- and remains -- tactically and strategically a necessity even if Obama can't (or won't) see it.

As the title to this piece says: "When the cat's away, the mice will play." Silly me! I just assumed everyone would understand that the RATS would also slink from the shadows and contribute to the madness and mayhem, as well.

Saturday, December 28, 2013

************************As
socialism wraps it’s cold, icy, fingers around freedom’s throat in
America, many Americans have slowly come to the realization that the
socialist takeover of America did not happen overnight. There were
plenty of warning signs over the past few decades. As I think back, the
most obvious of the “warning signs” was/is the so-called “Green
Movement.”

Those who follow the Green Movement, the acolytes of
the Global Warming “religion,” are easily identified by their unbridled
compulsion to bow down to the false idols of science, to socialist
politics, and, let us not forget… M O N E Y! You find them everywhere
these days. Turn on a TV and there they are straining to burden you with
a guilt trip about the damage YOU have done to the planet and how YOU
must atone for your wickedness in order to be redeemed from your sins
against the “Earth Mother.”

Go to church, and there they are,
often in the pulpits, railing about YOUR sins NOT against God, but your
sins against the Earth, the climate, the Polar bears, etc, etc.

In
America’s schools YOUR children are being indoctrinated in the world’s
newest religion and they are instructed to act as missionaries taking
the message of the new salvation back home to their parents and family
and friends and neighbors. They are made to sit through propaganda
movies by Nobel Prize winners which scare the living daylights out of
them and help mold those malleable mental crucibles into warriors of the
LEFT armed with lies, deceit, and more propaganda.

Spreading the
Green Gospel ain’t easy. If the Greenies get them at birth, and all the
way through 16 to 20 years in our public education system, they are
lost. The Green cult has got them… unless there is an “Intervention.”Our
politicians sold out, longs ago, to the greenies. They preach energy
independence and then refuse to allow America to become energy
independent by using the oil and coal we have right here beneath
American soil or under American waters or in the rocks that litter some
of America’s landscape. And now we have a President absolutely committed
to the green religion. The man can be forgiven some of his folly for if
you dig a little past his carefully crafted veneer you will find him
not as intelligent as you have been led to believe.

Back to the
new OLD religion. (That was not a mis-print, or an editorial screw-up.)
See, that’s what this new Green religion is… O L D! It is out and out
paganism. The first time I heard a minister preaching on the merits of
environmentalism from the pulpit, I nearly burst out laughing! The man
was obviously educated beyond his abilities! There was a man, supposedly
a man of God, speaking from a sacred spot in a building set aside for
the worship of God, endorsing paganism which, itself, is the world’s
OLDEST religion! I ask you, how is it possible for any reasonably
educated individual NOT to recognize the Green Movement for what it is…
pure Paganism, the worship of Gaia, the “earth mother, or “Mother
Earth”.

Many believe that paganism died after Constantine in the
third century. Not so! It DID recede but the practice of paganism
continued in the jungles of Africa and right here in what we now call
America, and even in Europe where the practice went, for all intents and
purposes, underground. Paganism has survived into the 21st century. Not
much about it has changed except the name by which it is known today….
environmentalism. It is the worship of the earth. It is the deification
of the planet and raising it up above that which Christians and Jews
refer to as God, Jehovah, and Yahweh. It is, for Christians and Jews, a
violation of the First Commandment: “Thou shalt have no other gods
before me.”

Today, as I scribble this little rant onto the
electronic paper in front of me, it is “Earth Day.” It is a day set
aside for the pagan worship of the earth, or Gaia. I sincerely hope you
did not take part in any of the ridiculous ceremonies planned for Earth
Day.

Even now, as I write this, I envision modern day Americans
bowing down to trees and rocks and rivers and oceans paying homage to
Gaia the “earth mother”. How utterly disgusting it is to see grown men
and women make complete fools of themselves in pagan worship services on
this day. What makes it truly disturbing is that these same men and
women who, on this Wednesday, bow down to the idols of a false god, a
pagan god, Gaia, will rush to church or temple or synagogue on Saturday,
or Sunday, and keep a straight face while they go through the motions
of worshiping the creator of all that is: seen and unseen!

Yes,
the pagans are back from the fringes of society and the shadows of
civilization to take advantage of mankind’s deep yearning for something
to worship that he, or she, can see and hold and touch and pay tribute
to in order to, somehow, redeem himself/herself from whatever his/her,
darkest fears happen to be. They call it environmentalism, but those of
us who recognize it for what it is call it by its real name… paganism.

In America today, it
is important to understand the link between paganism and socialism.
Here in America we now have a socialist government, as does much of the
rest of the world. Here’s the link…socialism is the incubator and the
nursery for paganism.

You see, America is now in it’s
“Post-Christian Era.” We are no longer a Christian nation. America,
today, is, at best, a Socialist/Pagan nation.

There is a price America
must pay for her failure to live into her promise, to live up to her
role as the leader of the world. Make no mistake, America forsook her
leadership role and joined the mob. If you have been surprised at the
rapidity with which America has crumbled, then you have not been paying
attention. Stand-by, for the worst is yet to come. We are only at the
cusp of the troubles and tribulations this nation must yet suffer.

Already,
today, I chafe under the yoke of socialism. The knowledge that the
burden is only going to grow heavier makes the chafing even worse.
Watching America desperately seeking redemption through the pagan
worship of the earth, this oldest of old religions, it occurred to me
that, at least here in America, we have finally succeeded in creating
God in our own image… and it is an abomination!

EPA Nifongs and Beales prosecute US hydrocarbons, jobs, living standards and health

Paul Driessen

Former Durham, NC district attorney Mike Nifong
was disbarred for withholding evidence from the defense and lying to
the court in the trumped-up Duke lacrosse team rape case. Ex-Boston
crime lab technician Annie Dookhan
was prosecuted for faking test results and contaminating drug samples,
to get accused dealers convicted. In both cases, charges against their
victims were dismissed or are under review.

So how should we handle federal officials who’ve become unethical researchers and prosecutors
– determined to get convictions, basing their cases on esoteric
circumstantial evidence, allowing tainted and fraudulent evidence,
hiding exculpatory information, rewriting the law, and denying defense
counsel the right to cross-examine adverse witnesses or present their
case?

As the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow explains in its amicus curiae brief
to the US Supreme Court, that’s what Environmental Protection Agency
regulators have been doing with global warming. They’re pulling every
dirty prosecutorial trick in the book, to convict fossil fuels, carbon
dioxide, and America’s economy and living standards of “endangering” the
public welfare.

Since
2009, EPA regulators have shown a single-minded determination to slash
hydrocarbon use, drive up the price of energy, and impose huge costs on
companies, industries and an economy struggling to stay afloat and
retain jobs. They want to control CO2 emissions from vehicles,
electrical generating plants, and eventually the sources of nearly
everything we make, grow, ship, eat and do. The damage to our
livelihoods, liberties, living standards, legal system, health, welfare
and life spans will be enormous.

The
devious dealings have continued under new EPA Administrator Gina
McCarthy, who has pronounced that there is “no more urgent threat to
public health than climate change.” Now it appears the mendacious
malfeasance is even worse than previously thought.

Newly released emails reveal that Ms. McCarthy was “very excited” in 2010 to “finally get the opportunity to work with” Mr. John Beale,
who for several years was the senior EPA policy advisor helping Ms.
McCarthy and her Office of Air and Radiation develop and implement tough
air quality and climate regulations. When he wasn’t off on one of his
Walter Mitty undercover CIA capers, that is.

Beale
was just convicted of defrauding taxpayers out of $1 million in
salaries and expenses for extended vacations that he took while claiming
to be a high level intelligence operative. His attorney says he had a
“dysfunctional need to engage in excessively reckless, risky behavior”
and “manipulate those around him through the fabrication of grandiose
narratives.”

It defies belief to
suppose his dysfunctions and fabrications did not extend to his official
EPA roles of devising agency air pollution and climate policies, then
cherry picking reports and manipulating research to justify them. The
criminal fraud for which Beale will serve 32 months in prison and repay
$1.4 million is outrageous. The fraud on our economy, democracy and
people’s lives is far more costly and despicable. Even worse, their
regulatory fraud is a pervasive problem throughout EPA.

The
Constitution specifies that the Executive Branch has no authority to
engage in lawmaking, but must faithfully execute the laws as written –
and not as regulators might wish the laws had been written, to advance
their preferred policy agendas. EPA has violated these most fundamental
rules, ignoring inconvenient statutory language, and devising and
enforcing other provisions out of whole cloth.

Between 1989 and 2010, Congress considered and rejected some 692 bills
addressing various aspects of greenhouse gas emissions and climate
change. So President Obama’s EPA simply imposed carbon dioxide controls
by executive fiat, using “prevention of significant deterioration” and
“new source performance standards” to create new authority over
coal-fired electrical generating plants. It then unilaterally changed
precise statutory emission standards from 250 tons per year to 100,000 tpy
– to avoid the public backlash that would come if it began regulating
and shutting down all the natural gas generators, refineries, cement
kilns, factories, paper mills, shopping malls, apartment and office
buildings, hospitals, schools and even large homes that emit more than
250 tons of carbon dioxide per year. Those job-killing rules can come
later, when radical environmentalists sue radical regulators, to enforce
the statutory requirement.

In
circumventing Congress, rewriting laws and ignoring the “separation of
powers” doctrine, EPA accomplished an unprecedented power grab over the
energy that fuels our economy and makes our jobs, living standards and
civil rights progress possible. It also flouted clear NEPA, Clean Air
Act and other statutory mandates that EPA protect the health, welfare
and environmental quality of all Americans.

The
agency remains fixated on the speculative impacts of sea levels,
storms, droughts and other manifestations of allegedly “dangerous
manmade climate change.” As CFACT’s amicus brief explains, it completely
ignores the increasingly adverse effects that its boiler MACT, carbon
dioxide and 1,900 other Obama-era EPA regulations are having on companies, jobs, families, entire industries and communities – and thus people’s physical, mental and emotional well-being.

.

As
breadwinners are laid off or reduced to part-time status, families are
unable to heat and cool their homes properly, pay bills, rent or
mortgage, buy clothing and medicines, or take vacations. Increasing
numbers of families deplete their savings and are made homeless. Being
unable to find or keep a job erodes self-worth, self-confidence and
psychological well-being. The stress of being unemployed, or
involuntarily holding multiple lower-paying part-time jobs, means
reduced nutrition, sleep deprivation, increased risk of heart attacks
and strokes, higher incidences of depression and alcohol, drug, spousal
and child abuse, more suicides and generally lower life expectancies.

It
means the regulations are far worse than the harms they supposedly
redress. For EPA to ignore this simple reality is illegal and
unconscionable. For it to do so based on fraudulent science is
outrageous.

The
agency’s position hardly reflected genuine climate science in 2009,
when EPA decreed that carbon dioxide endangers human health and welfare.
Since then, Earth’s temperature and weather events
have refused to cooperate with EPA’s dire predictions. But the agency’s
views and decisions remain etched in stone, leaving the agency on the
extreme fringe of alarmist opinion, insisting that its views are supported by IPCC predictions that are increasingly discredited by Climategate revelations, investigations into IPCC practices, the Beale scandal and even an exhaustive report by one of EPA’s own analysts.

When presented 37-year EPA veteran Alan Carlin’s analysis, his supervisor
tried to suppress the paper and refused to forward it to the EPA group
preparing the final report that would guide the endangerment decision.
The supervisor told him: “The administrator and administration has [sic]
decided to move forward on endangerment, and your comments do not help
the legal or policy case for this decision.”

Finally,
even full compliance with EPA’s destructive regulations would achieve
zero benefits, because emissions from China, India and other rapidly
developing countries will continue increasing total atmospheric GHG
levels – and because climate change is driven primarily by natural
forces, not CO2.

For
all these reasons, EPA’s carbon dioxide “endangerment” decision must be
reversed; its stationary source regulations must be scrapped; and the
agency must be required to fully evaluate the consistently adverse
effects of its regulatory edicts on human health, welfare and
environmental quality. If the Supreme Court fails to do so, the House
and Senate must reassert their Constitutional roles.

Otherwise
the United States will steadily fall behind its international
competitors. The health and well-being of Americans will increasingly
suffer. And the Legislative and Judicial Branches will become mere
bystanders to an unelected, unaccountable, agenda-driven Executive
Branch.

_______________

Paul Driessen is senior policy advisor for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.
*****************

Friday, December 27, 2013

Reporters Hit a White House Stone Wall

By Alan
Caruba

Obama’s
promise to lead an open and transparent administration has become an
“albatross” according to a Dec 24 Politico.com analysis by Josh Gerstein. As
Obama’s fifth year in office wraps up, much of the Washington and nation’s
press corps is very unhappy.

With the
exception of those who depend on Fox, ABC radio, the Wall Street Journal, and
other conservative outlets, too many of the consumers of news are blissfully
unaware of the liberal, rubber stamp product they are receiving. It is the
complete betrayal of those whom the press is supposed to serve.

They did
not report the truth about Obamacare. They have not reported the truth about
Obama’s failed foreign affairs policies, including the attack on Benghazi. They
have largely ignored other scandals. Obama’s new economic “inequality” lies are
right out of the Communist Manifesto. The result, however, was his reelection
in 2012 and millions of cancelled health plans.

All
administrations have sought to control the information—the message—that reaches
the public, but the Obama administration has gone to greater lengths than
previous ones. In particular, its public affairs offices (PAOs) have become
obstacles to press access.

Writing in
the Dec 17 edition of Editor & Publisher the newspaper trade magazine, Jim
Dickinson said, “Over two hours at the National Press Club a few months ago,
the truth finally hit me. Journalism has done it to itself, the ‘it’ being the
surrender of our First Amendment-protected responsibility to tell the people
what their government is really, actually doing—as opposed to what the
government tells us it wants the people to know.”

The panel
to which Dickerson was referring was entitled “Government Public Affairs
Offices: More Hindrance Than Help?”He
wrote that “Public affairs offices increasingly require that reporters conduct
all interviews through the press office. U.S. Departments and agencies often
mandate that their employees only talk to reporters through official channels
and with communications staff present.”

Not only
do government employees know that this means their job can be on the line, but
as I noted in October, the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act signed into
law in November 2012 in reality puts whistleblowers at risk of going to jail.

Reporters
find that the leaks from whistleblowers and routine information from government
employees are drying up. Ironically, the actions of former NSA employee Edward
Snowden and U.S. Army corporal Bradley Manning exposed more information than
the administration wanted anyone to know. Manning went to jail and Snowden has
found asylum in Russia. Both said they acted in the public interest; a public
being told that the NSA’s acquisition of data on every phone call is being done
to protect them.

The
problem is manifest in efforts under the Freedom of Information Act to
secure feedback from government agencies. Politico’s Gerstein pointed out the
availability of government records under FOIA often results in requests
routinely lingering for years “and often end up producing a ream of blacked-out
text.”News is expected to be timely and
delaying access to public records negates that.

What has
been and is reported these days are the lies for which the Obama administration
has become famous.

The
administration has called the scandals of the first term “phony” and a recent
Sixty Minutes interview with Susan Rice, now the national security advisor to
Obama, dismissed the Benghazi cover-up as “false.” It was Rice who went on five
Sunday news shows to spread the lies about the attack—on the anniversary of
9/11—having been caused by a video no
one had ever seen. That earned her a promotion!

The daily
White House press briefing has become increasingly heated and, when the
President gave a press conference before leaving on a Christmas vacation, he
was asked if 2013 had been the worst year to date for him. He obliquely
acknowledged what everyone knows, but denied he pays any attention to polls,
something every President of the modern era has always done.

The
mainstream press has learned that, in return for having published the White
House “party line” throughout its first term, that it would tap their
phones and accuse a Fox News reporter of being an “accomplice” for releasing
information it wanted to keep secret.

Its use of
public information offices to thwart or control what news is released, its
increased use of “official” White House photos, its widespread failure to
respond to Freedom of Information requests, and its use of social media and
organizations allied with the White House to advertise and spread its message
all add up to a highly manipulative effort to influence the public.

The good
news is that the Internet has become a major source of news and analysis
available to everyone. As traditional print newspapers suffer decline due to
the loss of advertising revenue and the younger generation’s preference for
electronic access to the news, the scope of news has expanded to sources beyond
government control.

A
secretive and deceptive Obama administration is suffering from an abundance and
availability of the TRUTH. Too bad that too many journalists have not been
active contributors.

Alan Caruba's commentaries are posted daily at "Warning Signs" and shared on dozens
of news and opinion websites. His blog recently passed more than 3 millionpage
views. If
you love to read, visit his monthly report on new books at Bookviews. For information on his professional
skills, Caruba Editorial Services is the place to go!
You can find Alan Caruba on both Facebook and Twitter as well.

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Sounding Brass And Tinkling CymbalA Commentary by J. D. Longstreet
****************"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal." (St. Paul in a letter to the Christian church at Corinth)

*************************
The crowd was roaring. The lone man in his impeccable tan colored uniform would step forward toward the lectern, then pause and let his eyes wander over the thousands of up turned faces -- all staring at him, waiting for him to speak. And they waited -- and they waited.

The man at the lectern made no effort to speak. He just stood there, almost motionless, and didn't say a word.

A wave of anxiety, nervousness, began to sweep through the crowd of expectant listeners. The noise level began to recede. Soon the roar of the crowd was gone completely. The crowd became quiet and motionless, a reflection of the man they had come expecting to hear speak.

A full sixty seconds would expire before that man would take the one remaining step to the lectern, and begin speaking.

At first he spoke softly forcing his audience to strain to hear his words. Quickly they were leaning forward, heads cocked, hands cupped behind ears in rapt attention, desperately seeking to hear every word, every syllable, every breath, and lay claim to the wisdom his words would impart.

Then little by little he would increase the volume of his voice until finally he was shouting and gesticulating in a near maniacal manner. His audience was worked up to a fever pitch ready and willing to do his bidding, no matter the consequences.

Those of you reading this now, if you are near my age, know exactly of whom I speak -- Adolf Hitler. He was a master at oratory. He was a master actor. He was a master at manipulating his fellowman. He was a master at dealing death and destruction. He was a master at destroying nations -- and -- nearly destroyed the world.

Watching a film clip of one of his speeches today sends chills racing up and down my spine. It is as though just the sound of his voice invokes evil.

He was, quite likely, the greatest orator of the 20th century.

Here in the 21st century, we have another great orator. He, too has to power to move his listeners to act while disregarding consequences. He, too, has worshipers -- some who even refer to him as "Lord and Master."

His Name is Barack Hussein Obama. And he is President of the United States of America. And he scares the hell out of me!

If you look at the faces in one of Hitler's crowds and compare them to the faces in Obama's crowds, you will see the same worship of their speaker. But look closely. Look at the eyes. Do you see it? Do you see the vacant, "the lights are on, but nobody's home" look reflected in those eyes? It's the look that makes those tiny little hairs on the back of your neck tingle and stand up. That's primal fear, honed to perfection by our ancestors while they still lived in caves.

Trust it. It is telling you: "Something is dreadfully wrong."

If you could look BEHIND those blank stares, I feel certain you would see something else, too. Raw fear. It's the sane part of the human mind fighting to regain control. Worshipers always fear -- and eventually begin to question.

Given a choice, I will not listen to an Obama speech. I get the same feeling I would get if told the Battle of Armageddon had begun. Bells and whistles begin going off in the Amygdala of my brain, the part of the brain that controls one's "flight or fight" reaction. That's our caveman ancestors banging on our door in the middle of the night yelling "FIRE!"

Be afraid. Be very afraid. No mere mortal should have that kind of power over his fellow human beings. It is too easily misused. It is raw power -- and it is corruptible.

Obama's speeches are chilling to me ... almost malevolent. It's as though he is using his voice, his tsunami of words, to misdirect the gaze of his worshipers away from all that is not right with America toward a utopian facade of an America that, in reality, does not exist -- and never will.

Encouraging worshipers is never a good idea for mere mortals. As we said above, worshipers will eventually begin to ask questions. Sooner or later they will ask the RIGHT question and receive the true answer. At which point the "worshipee" is in deep trouble. That mindless crowd can turn on a dime and produce pitchforks and torches that light the night in hate and violence -- all directed at the one who deceived them. History is replete with records of just such behavior played out time and again. The fate of Benito Mussolini springs instantly to mind.

Often less is, indeed, more. My father was a man of few words. As a result, when he spoke, the family listened. We knew that even though he did not speak often, when he did -- it was important -- and usually well thought out. When he had finished, he had finished. No force on earth could change his mind. I admired that, growing up as a lad, and I still do.

As I have grown older I have noticed that my world has been slowing down while the world around me has shifted into hyper drive. The voices I hear from the hyper drive world now are loud, reverberating, penetrating, harsh, crude, insistent, and aggravating. And I am continuing to learn how to shut them out and listen for that "still, small, voice" of authority (1 Kings 19:11-13 -- The Old Testament) asking: "What are YOU doing here, J. D.?"

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

The reasons to repeal Obamacare continuing to
pile up as more and more facts are revealed by those willing to spend the time
necessary to dig through the over 2000 page law.

Now we learn that Obama lied to America
about the Public Option (government-run health Insurance companies) being
dropped from ObamaCare.It was NOT
dropped. It is STILL in the law -- only
hidden. Look for yourself. Look in Section 1334, pages 97-100, of the
new health care law. If you feel as if
you have been screwed –that’s because you have!

Americans still
want ObamaCare repealed. As more and more of the duplicity in the law, and
surrounding the law, and the continuous flow of lies from the White House and
the Democrat/socialists in Congress concerning this law raise the ire of
Americans there is good reason to hope for a REAL change in
November of 2014 at the polls.

Americans have been lied to over and over and over by the
Obama Regime and his courtesans in the Congress. It never seems to stop. There is a constant
stream of lies from the left -- especially concerning the ObamaCare Law.

What is the Obama Administration trying so desperately to
cover up? What else is going on behind
the closed doors in the White House and the West Wing and yes, in the
Congress? Like children caught with
their hands in the cookie jar, they are lying to try to save face.

We have news for them.
It is TOO LATE. The carefully woven
curtain behind which the truth has been hidden is being shredded daily. Their pains-takingly molded façade is
cracking and crumbling and falling away revealing the bones amid the corruption
within what has been exposed as nothing more than a whited sepulcher.

The taint of socialism is everywhere in our government
today.America is dying a slow agonizing death from the killer of nations -- the
political cancer we know as socialism. It is eating away the core of our
country.

The worst is yet to come. I know it is not popular to say that, at
least in public, but a few of us are convinced that America has not yet seen the worst of this financial crisis. In fact, a handful of us actually believe we
are at the threshold of a global economic collapse, which will lead to the
collapse of entire national governments around the globe. There is absolutely no way America can dodge this bullet. The American economic system is so interwoven
with the economic systems of the other nations of the world that when one
nation’s system fails -- America takes a hit. How many hits can American withstand before our system
collapses as well? In her weakened
condition, the answer I’d say is -- not many.

The European economy is only treading water today and will
be circling the drain tomorrow. The
impact on America’s economy when Europe fails will be incalculable.

I cannot shake the feeling that America is being set up – set up to fail. ObamaCare is only one part of the plan to
weaken America and make her citizens so dependent upon government that when the
American collapse comes, we will flock to whatever those in power offer as a
means of survival. That which I expect them to offer, finally, is – Global
Governance.

With an extremely important election just 11
months away, the democrat/socialists are pulling out all the stops to buy time
and to create a mirage of “Recovery.”
They know they face a political massacre at the polls in November of 2014 and
they are trying, with all their might, to salvage as much of their power as
they can.

Don’t believe them.
Consider all the lies from the Obama Administration over the year just ending. If they will lie to Americans about the Public Option being taken out of
the ObamaCare Law, then what else have they been lying to us about all
along? Maybe the answer would be shorter if the question was: What have they NOT been lying about!

REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER!Take your rage to the polls and throw
the bums out next November.

About Me

J. D. Longstreet is a conservative Southern American (A native sandlapper and an adopted Tar Heel) with a deep passion for the history, heritage, and culture of the southern states of America. At the same time he is a deeply loyal American believing strongly in “America First”.